Çatal Höyük 2005 Overview

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO EXCAVATIONS
AT ÇATAL HÖYÜK, AMUQ PLAIN, SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY
Dr. Marina Pucci
ABSTRACT

This proposal seeks funding to support publication of the final report of the University of Chicago’s excavations at the site of Çatal Höyük, conducted as part of the Syro-Hittite Expedition to the Amuq Plain in southeastern Turkey during the 1930s.

Ever since the pioneering work of the Braidwood-led Chicago Expedition, the Amuq Sequence has been fundamental in cultural studies of southeastern Anatolia, the northern Levant and Syria. The Amuq Plain, situated at the juncture where the eastern Mediterranean seaboard merges with the Anatolian Highlands, holds a prominent place in Near Eastern archaeological research. It has been the scene of prominent excavations (e.g. Alalakh, Tell Ta‘yinat and Çatal Höyük), and has provided one of the foundational cultural sequences for the region. The Amuq Plain strategically straddles one of the principal transit corridors that ran from the Syro-Mesopotamian interior west to the Mediterranean and north to Anatolia. As a result, it preserves some of the richest and most extensive archaeological remains in the entire Near East (the Braidwood survey recorded no less than 178 mounded settlement sites within the narrow confines of the Plain), and therefore represents an exceptional setting in which to investigate the historical development of ancient Near Eastern society, and in particular the rise of early civilizations.

To facilitate such research, however, it is essential that the archaeological record from this pivotal region be examined more thoroughly and systematically, and the cultural sequence refined accordingly. It is within the context of this broader research objective that the present proposal is situated. The excavations pursued by the Oriental Institute focused primarily on three sites: Çatal Höyük, Tell Ta‘yinat, and Tell Judeideh. Extensive remains, mainly dating to the Iron Age, were uncovered at all three sites, and a large number of artifacts were collected. Although R. Braidwood published a detail overview of the cultural sequence from the Neolithic through to the end of the Early Bronze Age in 1960, and R. Haines produced a brief summary of the principal architectural remains uncovered at each site in 1971, to date, no final report has been produced documenting the exceptional remains recovered from any of these critically important sites.

After seventy years, these sites continue to be extremely important to the study of the ancient Near East, as the publication of large, horizontal exposures of Iron Age remains in this region are still lacking. The reactivation of fieldwork by the Oriental Institute’s Amuq Valley Regional Project, and the recent launching of the University of Toronto’s excavations at Tell Ta‘yinat (being conducted by T. Harrison in conjunction with plans to publish the original Chicago excavations at that site) now present a timely opportunity to re-examine and publish the results of the Chicago investigations at Çatal Höyük as well.

Of the three sites excavated by the University of Chicago, the Çatal Höyük excavations were the most extensive, and uncovered a lengthy cultural sequence from the Late Bronze through Iron Ages (Amuq Phases M-O). In particular, Çatal Höyük produced well-preserved remains spanning the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age transition, as well as extensive horizontal exposures of the domestic residential areas of the Iron II settlement; cultural remains that were not well-represented in the exposures achieved at the other principal sites in the valley, including Woolley’s excavations at Tell Atchana (Alalakh). The analysis and documentation of these remains thus will fill important gaps in the archaeological record for the region, and will provide the scholarly world with essential material for the study of ancient Near Eastern society during these formative phases in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages.

Marina Pucci/Chatal Höyük--